Brickbats and Bouquets: Sheffield Lake's Community Days Festival a big hit

BOUQUETS: To Sheffield Lake for presenting its Community Days festival that attracted thousands of visitors over five days last week.
It was evident during the Community Day’s parade July 10 that Sheffield Lake was the place to be. Families lined the parade route and enjoyed the entrants that ranged from safety service vehicles honking horns and activating the sirens to politicians handing out literature to children tossing candy to other children, big and small.
“Our goal is to keep (Community Days) very community oriented and family oriented,” said James McFall, event organizer and member of the Sheffield Lake Community Civic Council.
The community fair also is a fundraiser for the groups that makeup the Community Civic Council, a coalition that raises money for the city’s Joyce E. Hanks Community Center.
We applaud Sheffield Lake for giving its residents and visitors a positive and wholesome event that people will talk about until next year’s installment.

BOUQUETS: To the Museum of Hispanic and Latino Cultures, also known as Museo de las Culturas Hispana y Latina, for the wonderful display of artifacts that was showcased July 12 to the city of Lorain.
Visitors came in a steady stream to view the displays on the second-floor hall of El Centro de Servicios Sociales Inc., at 2800 Pearl Ave. Museum President Guillermo Arriaga said the exhibit attracted a cross-section of residents, including those from the Lorain Historical Society, Allen Memorial Art Museum of Oberlin and the Cleveland Museum of Art.
The displays included artifacts and replicas of native cultures including the Aztecs of Mexico and the Incas of South America.
We salute Arriaga’s effort to preserving the vast rich history of Hispanics and Latinos in our International City.

BRICKBATS: To the city of Lorain for its Municipal Court records being in a state of confusion because of computer troubles.
“A nightmare is what this is,” said Lorain Clerk of Courts Lori Maiorana, adding “everyday is worse here.”
The Municipal Court’s public records are offline because of a problem with some warrants being available for public viewing when they should not be. The lack of public access to court records is problematic because people rely on the website for background checks for a number of reasons, including people seeking jobs.
This is not acceptable. Maiorana is doing the best she can, but clearly the office needs help with its computers.
The court received an email from court software vendor AMCAD that the company is exiting the justice software solution business. The company is facing lawsuits from at least two municipalities.
In May, Maiorana said there were problems in court records because a former court computer technology chief was fired April 3 had not made backup files of the court’s electronic files from Feb. 28 to May 19, the day a city computer hard drive went bad.
This needs to be fixed. This is not tax dollars at its finest. Our residents deserve much better than this.

BRICKBATS: Speaking of Lorain Municipal Court, to former deputy clerk Sierra Dozier, the 27-year-old mother of one who is serving a year in federal prison for stealing at least $31,000 from the court. She stole money that defendants paid for their court fines. Just this week, Dozier pleaded guilty in Lorain County Common Pleas Court to drug, theft and tampering with records charges.
Your criminal enterprise involving deception, theft and drugs resulted in your lavish living. But you have shamed yourself by your actions which could have hurt citizens who were paying their court costs. Because of your selfishness by not applying the payments to the defendants’ cases and using the money for yourself, your criminal actions put them at risk of their licenses getting suspended.
You could have damaged many people. We hope that with your time behind bars you will reflect on what you did and the people you hurt.